A Comprehensive Timeline of Russian Electoral Interference: From Imperial Russia to the Digital Age
Russian election interference around the globe has a much longer history than most people realize, extending back centuries rather than decades. This interference has evolved alongside Russia‘s own political transformations, from imperial ambitions to Soviet ideology to modern geopolitical objectives under Vladimir Putin. Recent actions, particularly during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, represent not an anomaly but the continuation and evolution of long-established patterns of behavior designed to shape foreign politics to Russian advantage.
The Imperial Russian Roots of Electoral Interference
Russia’s involvement in foreign electoral politics dates back to the early 18th century. Following a period when Poland had been the dominant power that once occupied Moscow, the tables turned as Russia grew in strength. Under Peter the Great and his successors, Russia began systematically meddling in Poland’s electoral politics by bribing Polish nobles to vote against attempts to strengthen the Polish central government and national army. This early form of interference was aimed at keeping a neighboring power weak and malleable to Russian interests.
This pattern culminated at the end of the 18th century when Russia, alongside Austria and Prussia, partitioned the Polish state among themselves, effectively erasing Poland from the map. Poland would remain part of the Russian Empire until World War I when it finally regained independence. This early example established a precedent that would continue in various forms through subsequent Russian regimes.
The Birth of Soviet Electoral Interference
After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet approach to electoral interference took on an ideological dimension. In 1919, Vladimir Lenin founded the Communist International (Comintern), an organization designed to unite communist parties worldwide and foment revolution abroad. The Comintern distributed funding and supported propaganda operations in various countries to help communist parties compete more effectively in elections, with the ultimate goal of having these parties assume power and eventually abolish national borders.
While Lenin’s vision of global communist revolution was not realized, the Comintern’s activities generated significant paranoia in Western democracies like the United States and United Kingdom, where fears of Soviet manipulation of democratic processes took root. This marked the beginning of a more systematic approach to electoral interference that would be refined during the Soviet era.
Post-World War II: Aggressive Soviet Electoral Manipulation
After World War II, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin aggressively interfered in elections across Eastern Europe, particularly in countries like East Germany, Hungary, and Poland. These operations foreshadowed many tactics that would later be employed by Putin’s Russia. The Soviet Union manipulated voter rolls, falsified vote counts, and distributed massive amounts of propaganda through posters, pamphlets, and leaflets to influence public opinion.
These elections were effectively rigged, resulting in communist parties coming to power across Eastern Europe and subsequently ending competitive elections in these nations. This period represents one of the most successful campaigns of electoral interference in modern history, as it resulted in the establishment of Soviet-aligned governments throughout the Eastern Bloc.
Cold War Expansion: Global Electoral Battlegrounds
Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s KGB and America’s CIA engaged in what one CIA historian described as going “toe to toe in elections all over the world”. This included Soviet efforts to undermine U.S. allies and promote communist or sympathetic candidates globally.
The Soviet Union targeted U.S. presidential candidates directly during this period. Contrary to current perceptions that Russian interference is exclusively aligned with Republican interests, the Soviets sought to damage the candidacies of Republican nominees Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan in their respective elections. This historical fact underscores that Russian interference has always been pragmatically focused on advancing Russian strategic interests rather than committed to any particular American political party.
Soviet electoral interference during this period extended to numerous countries in Western Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia, making it a truly global phenomenon. The KGB developed sophisticated active measures to influence foreign public opinion, spread disinformation, and manipulate electoral processes. However, despite these extensive efforts, the Soviet Union’s ability to meaningfully impact U.S. elections remained limited due to technological constraints and the robustness of American democratic institutions.
The Ukrainian Testing Ground: Post-Soviet Interference
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia continued to interfere in elections, particularly in its “near abroad” – former Soviet states. Ukraine has frequently served as a testing ground for Russian electoral manipulation techniques. As early as 1994, Russian media boosted the Kremlin’s preferred candidate in Ukrainian elections. In 2004, Russia’s efforts to elect Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine’s presidential election were so heavy-handed that they contributed to the Orange Revolution protests against corruption and voter fraud.
Russia continued its assault on Ukraine’s politics following the 2014 Euromaidan movement and the subsequent annexation of Crimea. Many techniques first deployed in Ukraine were later recycled to interfere in European and American political processes, making Ukraine a crucial laboratory for developing and refining electoral interference tactics.
Digital Evolution: Cyber Operations and Social Media Manipulation
A watershed moment in the evolution of Russian electoral interference came during the May 2014 Ukrainian presidential election. This election was disrupted by sophisticated cyberattacks over several days, including the release of hacked emails, attempted alteration of vote tallies, and distributed denial-of-service attacks designed to delay the final result. These attacks were traced to pro-Russian hackers. In a particularly brazen move, malware that would have displayed a graphic falsely declaring far-right candidate Dmytro Yarosh the electoral winner was discovered and removed from Ukraine’s Central Election Commission less than an hour before polls closed.
Despite this intervention, Channel One Russia falsely reported that Yarosh had won, broadcasting the same fake graphic that had been planted on the election commission’s website. Political scientist Peter Ordeshook noted that “these faked results were geared for a specific audience in order to feed the Russian narrative that has claimed from the start that ultra-nationalists and Nazis were behind the revolution in Ukraine”. Significantly, the same Sofacy malware used in the Ukrainian election commission hack was later discovered on the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in the United States, creating a direct technical link between these operations.
Project Lakhta: The 2016 U.S. Presidential Election Interference
The most thoroughly documented case of Russian electoral interference is the multifaceted operation targeting the 2016 U.S. presidential election, code-named “Project Lakhta” by Russian intelligence. This operation began taking shape years before the election itself. As early as April 2014, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian “troll farm” bankrolled by Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin, launched the project, which a later Department of Justice indictment would describe as a “conspiracy to interfere in the U.S. political system“.
In June 2014, two IRA employees visited nine U.S. states, including electoral battlegrounds Michigan, Colorado, and Nevada, to “gather intelligence” on American politics. By May 2015, the IRA had begun its election interference campaign to “spread distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general”. In the summer of 2015, hackers linked to Russian intelligence services gained access to the Democratic National Committee’s computer network. Dutch intelligence services, which had infiltrated the Russian hacking group Cozy Bear in mid-2014, later alerted U.S. counterparts that Cozy Bear, together with another Russian group called Fancy Bear, had penetrated DNC servers.
The operation escalated in early 2016. By February, the IRA was seeking “any opportunity to criticize Hillary [Clinton].” Posing as Christian activists, anti-immigration zealots, and civil rights radicals, their social media posts eventually reached 126 million Americans. In March 2016, Russian hackers associated with military intelligence (GRU) successfully “spear-phished” Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s email account, stealing approximately 50,000 emails.
According to U.S. intelligence assessments, by late 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally directed the operation, which evolved from initially undermining American trust in democracy to undermining Clinton’s campaign, and finally to directly helping Trump’s campaign. Intelligence officials believe Putin became personally involved after Russia accessed the DNC computers because such an operation would require high-level government approval.
The timeline of Russian activities intensified as the election approached. In June 2016, GRU hackers broke into the Illinois State Board of Elections, gaining access to 200,000 voters’ registration data—the first of a series of attacks that would eventually target election systems in all 50 states. In July 2016, days before the Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of stolen DNC emails, causing significant disruption to the Democratic campaign.
On July 13, 2018, a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officers for their roles in interfering with the 2016 elections. The indictment charged 11 defendants with a computer hacking conspiracy involving unauthorized access to computers of U.S. persons and entities involved in the 2016 presidential election, stealing documents, and staging releases of these stolen documents to interfere with the election.
Continued Global Interference: Post-2016 Operations
Following the 2016 U.S. election, Russian interference in democratic processes has continued globally. Russia has interfered in elections and referenda throughout Europe, adapting and refining the techniques demonstrated in the U.S. operation. Putin’s victory in a 2020 constitutional referendum, which effectively extended his potential rule until 2036, may have further emboldened the Kremlin to pursue aggressive foreign influence operations.
By July 2020, there was already evidence that Russia was continuing to interfere in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. A National Security Agency report from May 2017 detailed “a months-long Russian hacking effort against the U.S. election infrastructure.” The NSA reported “the possibility that Russian hacking may have breached at least some elements of the voting system, with disconcertingly uncertain results”.
In September 2017, federal authorities notified election officials in 21 states that their election systems had been targeted by Russian hackers. For many state governments, this notification came more than a year after the initial warnings and represented the first official confirmation that their states had been specifically targeted.
The Historical Pattern and Modern Context
The long history of Russian electoral interference reveals several consistent patterns. From Imperial Russia’s manipulation of Polish politics to Soviet operations during the Cold War to Putin’s digital-age interference campaigns, Russian regimes have consistently sought to shape foreign electoral outcomes to their advantage. What has changed over time is not the fundamental objective but the sophistication of the methods employed, which have evolved alongside technological developments — or, in Soviet parlance, political technology.
Russia’s interference operations have become particularly dangerous in the digital age. As David Shimer, author of “Rigged: America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference,” explains, “During the Cold War, the KGB targeted many U.S. elections, but those operations were generally limited in their scope and significance. The Soviet Union lacked the capabilities to disrupt and direct U.S. elections in a meaningful way. That is no longer the case. Because of the internet, Russia can now manipulate American elections in a targeted and far-reaching manner”.
The historical record demonstrates that Russian electoral interference is neither unprecedented nor partisan in nature. Rather, it represents a consistent tool of Russian foreign policy that has been adapted to changing geopolitical circumstances and technological opportunities. Understanding this history is crucial for developing effective countermeasures to protect democratic processes worldwide from continued interference by Russia and other authoritarian regimes.
Russian election interference is very old news
The timeline of Russian electoral interference spans from 18th-century manipulation of Polish politics to sophisticated cyber operations against modern democracies. While the technological means have evolved dramatically, the strategic objectives have remained largely consistent: to weaken perceived adversaries, advance Russian interests, and undermine faith in democratic processes. The 2016 U.S. presidential election represented not a departure but an evolution of long-established patterns of behavior, enhanced by new digital capabilities that give such operations unprecedented reach and impact.
As democracies continue to grapple with these challenges, the historical perspective reminds us that electoral interference is not a new threat but an evolving one that requires sophisticated, coordinated responses. Understanding the continuity between past and present Russian interference operations is essential for developing effective strategies to protect electoral integrity in the digital age, where the battleground for democracy has expanded from polling stations to social media platforms, email servers, and election infrastructure systems.
Russian election interference in the United States, a timeline
| Date | Event | People |
|---|---|---|
| December, 2004 | Paul Manafort begins working for pro-Russian Ukrainian Presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych. | Paul Manafort, Viktor Yanukovych |
| November 9, 2013 | Donald Trump visits Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant and stays in a Russian hotel, notorious for being honey trap blackmail footage opportunities for the Kremlin. | Donald Trump, Aras Agalarov |
| 2014 | The Internet Research Agency (IRA) in Russia begins its disinformation and election influence operations on the United States, started by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch once known as “Putin’s Chef.” Prigozhin would later die under mysterious circumstances following an aborted insurrection attempt by his private militia company, The Wagner Group. | Yevgeny Prigozhin, Vladimir Putin |
| February 22, 2014 | Viktor Yanukovych is ousted as the Ukrainian President after months of protests during the Euromaidan movement. | Viktor Yanukovych |
| February 27, 2014 | “Little Green Men” (Russian soldiers without insignia) seize Crimea’s parliament and key locations within the territory of eastern Ukraine. | |
| March 18, 2014 | Russia stages a controversial “referendum” and “annexes” Crimea in violation of international law, claiming a 97% vote in favor of joining Russia. Putin’s invasion leads to Russian sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe. | Vladimir Putin |
| April 2014 | War in Donbas begins: Russian-backed separatists seize parts of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, declaring “people’s republics.” Ukraine begins military operations to defend itself from Russian aggression. | |
| July 17, 2014 | Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 is shot down over eastern Ukraine by a Russian-supplied Buk missile, killing 298 people. Investigators later confirm Russian involvement. | |
| September 5, 2014 | Minsk I Agreement: Ukraine, Russia, and OSCE sign a ceasefire deal in Minsk, Belarus. Fighting slows but never fully stops. | |
| February 12, 2015 | Minsk II Agreement: A new ceasefire is negotiated after heavy fighting in Debaltseve. Russia continues supporting separatists despite the deal. | |
| June 16, 2015 | Reality TV star and trust fund socialite Donald Trump announces his candidacy for US President. | Donald Trump |
| Summer 2015 | Russian-linked hackers begin targeting Democratic Party organizations, including the Democratic National Committee. | |
| July 2015 | The FBI warns the DNC that Russian hackers are targeting their network. | |
| March 29, 2016 | Paul Manafort joins the Trump campaign as an advisor, to help manage the Republican National Convention (RNC). | Paul Manafort, Donald Trump |
| April, 2016 | The GRU unit of Russian intelligence hacks the DNC’s email systems. | |
| April 26, 2016 | Kremlin-linked professor Joseph Mifsud tells Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos that the Russians have “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. | Joseph Mifsud, George Papadopoulos |
| May 19, 2016 | Paul Manafort is promoted to be the Trump campaign chairman. | Paul Manafort |
| June 9, 2016 | The infamous “Trump Tower meeting” where Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort meet with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who claims to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton. | Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort |
| June 14, 2016 | The Washington Post is the first outlet to report that Russia hacked the DNC. | |
| July 19-21, 2016 | The Republican National convention (RNC) is held in Cleveland, OH, resulting in Trump officially securing the Republican nomination and questions arising about Manafort’s numerous ties to Russia. | Paul Manafort |
| July 22, 2016 | WikiLeaks releases thousands of emails stolen by Russian hackers from the DNC. | Julian Assange |
| July 27, 2016 | Trump publicly asks Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails in an unprecedented geopolitical oddity when he says: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” | Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton |
| August 14, 2016 | Paul Manafort’s name appears on a “black ledger” account made by the ousted Ukranian president Viktor Yanukovych, showing payments of about $13 million between 2007 and 2012. | Paul Manafort, Viktor Yanukovych |
| August 18, 2016 | The Associated Press reports that Paul Manafort’s firm had lobbied in the U.S. on behalf of Ukraine without registering as a foreign agent, triggering FARA violations. | Paul Manafort |
| August 19, 2016 | Paul Manafort steps down from the Trump campaign. | Paul Manafort |
| Mid-September, 2016 | The FBI receives the Christopher Steele dossier. | Christopher Steele |
| October 3, 2016 | Paul Manafort is still studiously denying his foreign holdings to his tax preparer, responding negatively to his inquiry over email. | Paul Manafort |
| October 7, 2016 | WikiLeaks began releasing John Podesta’s stolen emails, an hour after the Access Hollywood tape was released | Julian Assange, John Podesta |
| October 7, 2016 | The Access Hollywood tape is released, in which Trump is caught on a hot mic telling the host of the show that he liked to “grab [women] by the pussy” and that they let him do it because he’s a “star” | Donald Trump |
| October 7, 2016 | The DHS and the ODNI issue a joint public statement, attesting to their findings that the Russian government was responsible for the theft of the thousands of emails and documents from the DNC and Clinton. Nobody sees it because of the next 2 pieces of news… | |
| October of 2016 | The IRA organizes a series of pro-Trump rallies in Pennsylvania | |
| October 24, 2016 | Ukranian President Petro Poroshenko warns that separatists in the east have more tanks than Germany or the UK | Petro Poroshenko |
| October 28, 2016 | FBI Director James Comey notifies Congress that the bureau is reopening the investigation into Clinton’s emails. | James Comey |
| November 8, 2016 | Donald Trump wins the presidential election despite losing the popular vote. | Donald Trump |
| November 10, 2016 | President Obama warns Trump about hiring Michael Flynn as National Security Advisor due to his ties to Russia. | Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Mike Flynn |
| November 17, 2016 | Russia blocks the website LinkedIn from its citizens after LI refuses to comply with a 2014 law stating that all user’s personal data must be stored on Russian servers, with encryption keys provided to the FSB. | |
| November 23, 2016 | Paul Manafort files false statements in his reluctant FARA document to Attorney General Jeff Sessions | Paul Manafort, Jeff Sessions |
| Dec 1, 2016 | Mike Flynn meets with Kushner and Kislyak to discuss establishing a secret backchannel with Russia | Mike Flynn, Jared Kushner, Sergei Kislyak |
| December of 2016 | Kirill Dmitriev is first introduced to Erik Prince as a way to break in to the new administration | |
| December 29, 2016 | Mike Flynn calls Sergei Kislyak and asks Russia not to escalate or worry about the sanctions — implying they’d be lifted by the incoming administration | Mike Flynn, Sergei Kislyak |
| December 29, 2016 | The U.S. imposes sanctions on the Russian government for interfering in the 2016 election | Barack Obama |
| December 30, 2016 | Trump tweets: “Great move on delay (by V. Putin)” | |
| December 30, 2016 | Putin announced that Russia would not take retaliatory measures to the sanctions at this time | |
| December 31, 2016 | Kislyak calls Flynn and tells him his request had been heard at the highest levels, and that’s why Russia had chosen not to act. | |
| January 6, 2017 | Members of the intelligence community brief President-Elect Trump on a multi-agency certainty that Russia has interfered in the 2016 election and helped him become President at the expense of Hillary Clinton. A public version of the report is released the same day. | |
| Jan 10, 2017 | Buzzfeed publishes the Christopher Steele dossier that’s been circulating widely around Washington DC | Christopher Steele, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin |
| January of 2017 | Seychelles meeting between Erik Prince and Kirill Dmitriev to discuss US-Russia relations | |
| Jan 24, 2017 | Mike Flynn is interviewed by the FBI. | Mike Flynn |
| Feb 10, 2017 | Paul Manafort makes additional false statements in connection with his FARA filing. | Paul Manafort, Jeff Sessions |
| February 13, 2017 | Mike Flynn resigns after news emerges that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. | Mike Flynn, Mike Pence, Sergey Kislyak |
| February of 2017 | An IRA-controlled Facebook persona claiming to want to teach African-Americans self-defense to protect themselves when contacted by police, hired an actual self-defense instructor in NY to offer classes sponsored by Black Fist. | |
| March of 2017 | Sometime this month, DCLeaks.com shuts down. | |
| Mar 2, 2017 | Attorney General Jeff Sessions recuses himself from oversight of the investigation into Russia interference in the 2016 election. | Jeff Sessions |
| March 20, 2017 | FBI Director James Comey confirms that the bureau has been investigating both Russian interference and the possibility that the Trump campaign was involved, in testimony to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) | James Comey |
| May 9, 2017 | President Trump fires FBI Director James Comey. | Donald Trump, James Comey |
| May 16, 2016 | The New York Times reports that Trump pressured Comey to drop the Flynn investigation, raising obstruction concerns. | Donald Trump, James Comey, Mike Flynn |
| May 17, 2017 | Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appoints Robert Mueller as the Special Counsel in charge of investigating the Russian interference and potential Trump cooperation | Rod Rosenstein, Robert Mueller, Donald Trump |
| October 20, 2017 | Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein confirmed the SCI’s investigative authority regarding several individuals and entitities in a memorandum | |
| October 30, 2017 | Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates are indicted on multiple charges of money laundering, tax fraud, and failing to register as foreign agents. | Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Robert Mueller |
| Nov of 2017 | A Facebook representative testifies on the Hill that they had identified 470 IRA-controlled accounts that made as many as 80,000 posts between January 2015 and August 2017 | |
| Nov of 2017 | The House Committee HPSCI held an open hearing with Facebook, Google, and Twitter about Russia’s weaponization of social media during the 2016 election on their platforms. | |
| Nov 30, 2017 | Erik Prince gives testimony before the House HPSCI committee | |
| Dec 1, 2017 | Mike Flynn pleads guilty in court to lying to the FBI | Mike Flynn |
| Dec 29, 2017 | CNBC pronounces Trump “delusional” in NYT interview | Donald Trump |
| Jan 10, 2018 | Trump lawyer Michael Coehn files a defamation lawsuit against Buzzfeed for the publication of the Steele dossier. | Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, Buzzfeed, Christopher Steele |
| January of 2018 | Twitter announces it identified 3814 IRA-controlled Twitter accounts and notified about 1.4 million people they believed to have been in contact with an IRA-controlled account | |
| Feb 8, 2018 | Former President George W. Bush stated publicly that he believes the Russians meddled in the 2016 election. | George W. Bush |
| April 9, 2018 | The FBI raids the office of Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, seizing documents related to hush money payments and possible Russia ties. | Michael Cohen |
| July 16, 2018 | Trump meets with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, and publicly sides with Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies on Russian election interference. “I don’t see any reason why it would be Russia,” Trump states — contradicting evidence from his own people. | Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin |
| November 6, 2018 | Democrats take back the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections, teeing up Congressional investigations into the ties between Trump and Russia. | Donald Trump |
| March 22, 2019 | Robert Mueller submits his final report to the Department of Justice. Attorney General Bill Barr releases a summary downplaying the findings of the report before the public has a chance to see it. | Robert Mueller, Donald Trump, Bill Barr |
| April 18, 2019 | The full Mueller Report is released, confirming Russian interference and Trump’s involvement, but not proving criminal conspiracy. | Robert Mueller, Donald Trump |
| July 24, 2019 | Robert Mueller testifies before Congress, stating that Trump could be charged with obstruction after leaving office. | Robert Mueller, Donald Trump |
| July 25, 2019 | Trump holds what he later refers to as a “perfect phone call” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which Trump pressures him to investigate Joe Biden. U.S. military aid to Ukraine is temporarily withheld, leading to Trump’s first impeachment. | Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Joe Biden |
| December 18, 2019 | Trump is impeached for the first time over his Ukraine pressure campaign, in which he sought to withhold aid in exchange for dirt on Joe Biden. | Donald Trump, Joe Biden |
| November 3, 2020 | Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump to secure the US Presidency. | Joe Biden, Donald Trump |
| January 6, 2021 | Pro-Trump rioters storm the U.S. Capitol — as invited and goaded by Trump — in an attempted insurrection, attempting to overturn Biden’s victory. | Donald Trump, Joe Biden |
| April 2021 | Russia masses troops near Ukraine’s border, raising invasion fears. | |
| December 17, 2021 | Putin demands NATO pull back from Eastern Europe and that Ukraine never be allowed to join NATO. The U.S. and NATO reject the demands. | Vladimir Putin |
| February 21, 2022 | Putin recognizes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine as independent states. Russian troops enter these regions under the guise of “peacekeepers.” | Vladimir Putin |
| February 24, 2022 | Russia launches full-scale invasion of Ukraine when Russian forces attack from the north (Belarus), east (Russia), and south (Crimea). Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol, and other cities are bombed. Putin claims — absurdly, given that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish — the invasion is to “denazify” Ukraine. | Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelenskyy |
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